cherrypicked
by signelchan
Summary: Going out for ice cream is fun. Going out for ice cream when the weather's actually perfect for it is better. Going out for ice cream and meeting with friends(-ish) while there is either best, or much worse. [Modern AU]


Despite what any person with common sense would tell others, there is actually no bad time for going out for ice cream if someone falls into one of two categories: if they have a sweet tooth to satisfy, or if they have cravings that are impossible to ignore. Be it the middle of a winter cold snap or the middle of the night, there is no bad time for finding somewhere that's open that sells ice cream, driving on over, and getting whatever's needed to curb the need at hand.

For months, the only time that either Gaius or Lissa wanted to get ice cream, it was at some moment that the universe wanted them to have anything but. There was the instance where they got to the front door of the grocery store right as the manager was locking up, getting turned away when the freezer aisle was right within view. They had nearly wrecked on several occasions when the roads were covered with ice an inch thick in spots, but they weren't going to deny themselves the treat they wanted. And who could forget the time that the power was out over most of their side of Ylisstol, meaning they had to drive halfway across town just for a sub-par scoop of ice cream each.

So when the day came when they both wanted it at once, and it was the middle of decent-weathered spring day, there was cause for celebration. Maybe the gods were smiling down on them that day, or maybe everything had fallen into place properly, but there was going to be nothing that stopped the two from getting the ice cream they so desperately wanted. "Nice to finally have you want this at a time that doesn't mean we're out like criminals, Princess," Gaius joked, shaking Lissa's shoulder a bit as they walked out to their car together. "Don't know if I could handle getting pulled over by another cop and having to explain why we're out at that hour."

"You never do much explaining, you always point to me and say it's my fault!" Tilting her head back and rolling it to where she was looking at him with an exasperated look, Lissa continued, "It's not _always_ my fault that we go out super late. Most of those times it's you wanting ice cream that does it, and you never want what we have here at home!"

"I'm the one that never wants it? Says the woman who's the reason we have so many flavors here!" He opened the door on her side of the car, like the gentleman he occasionally tried to be, and let go of her so that she could climb in. "Come on, you're not going to argue against me on that one? Kinda lame."

She huffed, climbing into the seat slowly and then nearly slamming Gaius' fingers in the door when she slammed it closed. Through the window and windshield he could see that she was sitting there grumbling as he ran around the car and jumped in the driver's seat, looking to her expectantly as if he was still waiting for her rebuttal. "Yeah, well, it's not really my fault that we have so many flavors anyway! I can't help it that every time I want it, your son doesn't let me have any of what we already have!" Her face was contorted into a look of disgust at him as she rest an arm over the top of her bulging stomach, a sight that made Gaius smile for a split second before he remembered that he was supposed to be driving them somewhere right then.

"Right, right, we can't blame you for anything because we both know it's the little guy making the decisions here," he said, turning on the car and heading them in the direction of the nearest ice cream parlor he could think of. For all the mad dashes they'd made in search of the frozen treat in the past few months, he was still always second-guessing not just which places were closest, but also which places would serve them exactly as he'd like them to. This place in particular wasn't exactly the cheapest, but it was by far the best variety for them to pick from, essential when Lissa never quite knew what she was going to get until she was ordering it, and when Gaius always made his own order several scoops big, depending on what flavors caught his eye.

They were far from the most frugal and put-together ice cream connoisseurs, that was for certain, but they had fun on their little outings and made the most of the time that they were spending together. Except, on this particular trip out, mostly due to it being mid-afternoon when they were out in the first place, it wasn't going to just be time spent with the two of them, not if they wanted to eat at that particular shop (which they did, judging by how excited Lissa had gotten when she saw they were headed in its direction). "Oh hey, friends!" a voice inside the shop called when the couple walked in, and it took them a second to realize it wasn't the person behind the counter being polite to them.

"Wow, hi there Ricken!" Lissa excitedly replied, waving at the source of the greeting. The person in question, sitting at a table against the wall of the small shop, seemed to light up at her response, but frowned when the girl across from him got up from her seat and made a dramatic approach over to the couple, stomping her feet with every step.

"Excuse me, but no one asked for anyone to come intruding on our ice cream date!" the little girl bellowed, her voice a lot scarier than what should have come from someone of her stature. "Especially not anyones that actually know Ricken! Now he's gonna act mature and not tolerate me making little dragons in my ice cream with my tongue!"

"Aw, your friend's got himself a little girlfriend. Go make friendly with them and I'll order us both something." Having ignored the girl's anger almost entirely, Gaius pushed Lissa a few steps forward before stopping and letting her come back to his side. "Er, right, forgot that you've got to decide what you want before you can socialize. Let's get on that."

Side-eyeing the girl in front of them, while also trying to look at her friend against the wall, Lissa gave a small nod. "Sounds like a plan. I'll pick what I want, then I'll talk with Ricken for a few minutes."

"I don't think you're going to be doing that, no way miss!" the girl shouted, trailing behind the couple as they went up to the counter. She didn't try touching either of them, but she continued telling them both how they weren't talking to her date unless she said they could, warnings they both ignored. Once she'd placed her order, Lissa left Gaius' side and went over to the table against the wall, the little girl taking that as her opportunity to run around her and take her chair before Lissa could sit in it. "Ha, so much for you sitting here, you date-ruiner! Go back to your man!"

"Nowi, please, Lissa doesn't mean any harm by coming over here," Ricken said, standing up and offering the blonde his seat. "And, really, you should have been polite and let her sit down, she's clearly in more need of a chair than either of us."

The little girl rolled her eyes while Lissa thanked her friend and sat down where he'd been. "I didn't come out here to sit across from some whale, though, Ricken! I came to sit across from you and make you watch while I made dragons in my ice cream!"

"She's not a whale, be nice!" Defensively hugging his friend, Ricken glared at the girl he'd been there with. "Seriously, Nowi, it's not like I'm going to leave you for her, so you don't have to be so rude to her. She's just a friend."

"I really am just a friend," Lissa confirmed, trying not to get offended at the rude name that had been flung her way, "and besides, I don't think I want to ruin your date or anything. Why don't you just keep doing your dragon thing and I'll watch too?"

Pounding her fist on the table and flinging her spoon behind her, Nowi defiantly shook her head. "No way, I don't show that kind of stuff to lame old people like you. Anyone who's old enough to be having a baby is too old for my tricks."

"She's the same age as me and you show me the tricks every time we go anywhere." Taking a deep breath, Ricken looked at Lissa with an apologetic gaze. "I'm so sorry she's acting like this, it's like taking a kid out whenever I go anywhere with her. I know you don't know what that's like, but—"

"Hey, Lissa, I couldn't decide what flavor I wanted so I got eight of them, that's cool, right?" Gaius interrupted, not actually wanting an answer as he was coming to the table with two bowls of ice cream, one that had one scoop and the other overflowing with many different flavors. He pushed the smaller bowl in front of Lissa before digging into his own, not caring that all eyes were now focused on him and his treat.

"So anyway, let's just forget what I just said," Ricken told Lissa, as she started taking small tastes of her own ice cream, "since you clearly do know what it's like to go out with someone who acts like a kid."

"I am not a kid, okay? I'm just a young adult with an immature streak." Nowi crossed her arms over her chest and took a huffy breath. "And you're being a super jerk by talking about me to your new girlfriend."

"She's not my new girlfriend," he corrected, walking around the table to get behind Nowi and picking her spoon off the floor. "She's just a friend I've had since forever. You know, like the other friend of mine that you hate?"

Nowi had to think for a second, time during which Ricken gave her back her spoon, and when she had the person in mind she simply grabbed that spoon and chucked it right at him. "So she's just like Maribelle, huh? Down to the meanness and everything? Maribelle told me to get my feet off her table that one time, which I was only doing because I wanted to get comfortable and she said no shoes on the couch!"

"I'm not really anything like Maribelle," Lissa said in-between bites of her ice cream. "Even though she's my best friend and all that. I'm totally more laid-back than her, and a lot more fun than she could ever dream of being!"

"Well clearly you're more laid-back and fun, I mean, look at you!" Nowi gave her a once-over, scrunching her face as she did. "You're super young and you're not married and you're having a baby—that's so the recipe for 'fun', isn't it?"

All three people there at the table cut in at once to comment on what had just been said: Gaius, with his mouth full of ice cream, pointed out, "No one said we weren't married, okay?"; Ricken, shaking his head as he rubbed his cheek from where the spoon had hit him, told her, "I already said, she's not young, she's as old as I am!"; and Lissa, looking down at herself and sighing, agreed with the baby thing, saying, "Okay, yeah, making a baby would be fun, I guess…"

Since none of them had paid attention to what the others said, they were all surprised when Nowi started laughing, doubling over in her chair. The laughter only intensified when they all heard, in a quiet, questioning voice, "Hey, doesn't this normally have a cherry on top?" followed by Lissa looking to Gaius with tears beginning to form in her eyes as she continued, "Gaius, did you take my cherry?"

For all the scolding on Nowi's immaturity, the fact that everyone minus Lissa started laughing at the innocent question was enough to prove that none of them were as mature as their age and positions would have indicated.

* * *

 **A/N: I wrote this last August and never posted it because? I don't know why I never did honestly**

 **let's just say that this whole idea came from the last line of dialogue and I ran from there c:**


End file.
